Twice in two weeks, Surrey, B.C., immigration consultant Neera Agnihotri discovered her firm was listed on employment documents for foreign workers supposedly bound for B.C.
The only problem: she had never heard of any of the prospective workers or the businesses wanting to hire them.
“I was like, ‘No, this is not our client,'” Agnihotri says, reviewing the paperwork and highlighting signs of forgery.
“You can see a little bit of alteration in the font,” Agnihotri points out on one. On the other, there’s a typo on the name of her firm, Agnihotri Immigration Consulting Inc.
The documents were forged Labour Market Impact Assessments, or LMIAs. Employers typically receive the documents from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) if they want to hire a foreign worker. They’re meant to show that a foreign worker is needed to fill a specific job.
LMIA-supported positions can also increase the worker’s chances of becoming permanent residents in Canada. Workers also need to demonstrate they have requisite skills and language proficiency before they receive a work permit from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
But in recent years, fraudsters have used the documents to prey on foreign nationals who are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for them under the false promise they’ll legally be allowed to live and work in Canada.
“There are scammers, numerous scammers out there in the world, who are making these fake LMIAs and selling them to unsuspecting workers who have this glimmer of hope that they might be able to get a job in Canada,” said Cassandra Fultz, an Ontario-based immigration consultant.
Previous CBC investigations have uncovered scammers selling fraudulent LMIAs for up to $45,000.
“The problem is, when someone is desperate, when someone really wants that job or that ability to work in Canada, they’re willing to believe it,” said Fultz.
Surrey immigration consultant raises concerns over fraudulent documents
In Agnihotri’s case, the LMIAs were brought to her attention by neighbouring firms that received them on behalf of the worker in March.
Her firm, Agnihotri Immigration Consulting Inc., was unwittingly listed as a third-party representative on behalf of the employers, an Okanagan construction company and an Abbotsford trucking business â neither of which she had ever heard of.
Both businesses denied any knowledge of the forged LMIA. CBC News has reviewed the documents which Agnihotri has submitted to ESDC for investigation.
Agnihotri suspects previous legitimate LMIAs were replicated by a bad actor and are now being used as a template for fake documents. She fears there could be more forged documents with her company’s name on them circulating without her knowledge.
“It’s quite concerning, because I’ve only seen two, and I’m one individual, one company,” said Agnihotri. “We don’t know how vastly this is happening.”
ESDC told CBC News that it does not publicly release figures on LMIA fraud.
According to the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC), any instance where a prospective employee is asked to pay for an LMIAÂ is considered fraud.
The organization, which represents licensed consultants, says it’s fighting “unauthorized practitioners” who pose as licensees and try to sell immigration documents.
“In a series of recent enforcement blitzes, we have shut down more than 5,000 web pages and social media pages advertising [unauthorized practitioners],” said an ESDC spokesperson in a statement.
Temporary foreign workers targeted by costly online immigration schemes
Cassandra Fultz, a registered consultant at Toronto’s Doherty Fultz Immigration in Toronto, says her office routinely gets calls and emails from people asking if their LMIA documents are real or fake.
“It’s never real,” said Fultz. “Some of them look pretty good, they have a lot of the details correct, but some are just a little bit off. And some of them look totally ridiculous.”
“People are forking out hundreds, and literally thousands of dollars for these LMIAs, and they’re not real. They’re just out that money,” said Fultz.
Fultz says scammers will often impersonate representatives from legitimate firms, so she is calling on Ottawa to step in and investigate fraud claims brought forward by immigration consultants who risk losing credibility.
“Regulated professionals have the most at stake. We have the most to lose,” said Fultz.
